Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 14 Dec 1967

Vol. 231 No. 14

Adjournment (Christmas Recess) (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Dáil at its rising on Thursday, 14th December, do adjourn until Wednesday, 31st January, 1968.

—(The Taoiseach).

Mr. Larkin

When I reported progress last night, I was dealing with a section of our community who are not in a position to look after themselves because of age, illness, physical incapacity, or because they are unemployed. I said the Taoiseach appeared to be somewhat complacent about the present and about the future prospects of the country but he held out no specific hope of any early assistance for this section of our people. I hope he will take the opportunity, when he comes to reply, of indicating that this long-established practice of putting revision of social services and of adequate social assistance on the long finger will cease. If the situation is as propitious as he would have the Dáil to believe, I trust he will not permit this important revision to be delayed even for a period of some months. In recent years we have had a position in which prices were rising consistently. Salary and wage earners were in a position to seek some adjustments to meet these rising prices. The social welfare classes, on the other hand, had no such opportunity available to them and they were exposed to continually rising prices without any alleviation of their unfortunate situation.

The Taoiseach was also complacent about the fact that there is some increase in housing activity. I do not know what the Taoiseach and his Government have to boast about in that regard. Housing is a continuous responsibility of the Government. It was their responsibility in 1964, a date which appears to have some relevance, and it is their responsibility in 1967. It is the task of the Government to ensure that our people are adequately housed. So long as a single family remains unhoused there can be no ground for complacency in relation to housing. This Government have been in power for a very long period and there are still people in our midst in need of proper accommodation. It is possible that the Taoiseach may not know the situation, and perhaps the Minister for Local Government does not know the real situation, but their complacency would be rudely shattered if they saw the conditions in which Irish citizens are living within a mile of this building.

Statistics are very important things and there are many experts dealing with them who can produce figures which do not mean much, particularly the figures which are trotted out here by supporters of the Government to show that there are 10,000 or 11,000 houses under construction one year as compared with 3,000 or 4,000 in some other year when the same Government was in office. These figures surely demonstrate that at one stage the Government was doing nothing. There was a reference here to the fact that 3,500 houses were under construction in 1964. We know the Government that was in office in that year but it is a fact that there were very many more houses under construction in the year 1951. The last period of office of a Fianna Fáil Government did not begin in 1963, it goes back to 1957 and one wonders what they have been doing in all that time besides looking after their friends.

It is good to see that there has been some increase in housing and our main charge against the Government in this matter is that that increase did not take place early enough. There is no guarantee, having regard to the record of this Government, that this increase will not tail off after a period. Should the wind blow unfavourably for one moment the first section of the Irish people to feel the draught are those who need housing. I shall give an instance of that. Deputy Patrick Smith was Minister for Local Government in 1952-53 and there was a specific and deliberate slow-down in housing. Housing plans were held up for month after month and also proposals for the acquisition of sites for houses. This policy suited Fianna Fáil at the time and so they had no hesitation in imposing controls. That was a period in which we were living under the hairshirt philosophy of another former Fianna Fáil Minister.

There is another aspect to which we have to draw the attention of the Taoiseach, that is taxation as it affects the people buying their own houses or being housed by local authorities. We should give Fianna Fáil credit for their ability to mislead and confuse the people over the years. Nobody likes taxation and in this society we are operating on the principle of the profit motive. In our society the important thing is the individual, not his place in the community and his responsibility to it. Fianna Fáil realises well the dislike of direct taxation and so they introduce indirect taxation in the belief that the people do not realise or may forget what is being done to them. In this way they introduced the turnover tax.

They have now introduced another scheme. They have been transferring increasingly the responsibility for the financing of the social welfare and health services from the national Exchequer to the local authorities and the ratepayers. Every person who is a member of a local authority, every person who pays rates to local authorities knows that in recent years this manoeuvre has been growing. Each year a bigger proportion of the cost of the health and social services is being transferred from the national Exchequer to the local authorities. This is intelligent on the same basis that the three card trick man is an intelligent man. He has the people watching his three cards while he is clearing the money from the table.

We in this country are inclined to pay lip service to the distressed section of the community but when it comes to sacrificing part of our incomes to them we are reluctant to do it. The Taoiseach is well aware of this human frailty and so he takes the charges in this connection off the central Exchequer and direct taxation and transfers them to the local authorities.

Surely it should be accepted that the payment of taxes should be on the basis of ability to pay. That should be the sine qua non in imposing any form of taxes in the interest of the community. I am not talking now about taxation on luxuries because people can do without them, I am talking about indirect taxation on the necessaries of life, and particularly about taxation on people who are occupying the ordinary type of residence, whether as local authority tenants, or people buying their houses from the local authority, or buying their houses with the assistance of loans of one sort or another. It is inequitable that they should be forced to pay for services which in many cases they badly need themselves. Deputy Burke boasted of a wide knowledge of the problems of the people he represents. Whether that is correct or not is a matter for argument.

Mr. Corish

I do not think you should be saying things like that about Deputy Burke.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I have a lot of patience.

Mr. Dillon

He will put on his mitre and crozier if you say any more about him.

Mr. Larkin

I doubt if he would contradict me if I said that there are thousands of families who are forced, through this form of three card trick method, to contribute to the services they need and to contribute to services for which they are not in a position to pay, directly or indirectly. A family on a low income has to pay for the services they need in their rates, services which they should get without direct charge. They are being made to pay a direct charge because the present system of rating bears no relation to the person's ability to pay. For many years representations from many quarters have been made to have a revision of this system but as yet we have no indication that anything posi-tive is being done. We hope that the Taoiseach will give some thought to these problems.

Recently the Taoiseach referred to an increase in the number at work. No doubt there will be a reference to the numbers employed in industries which have been newly established with the aid of public money. Financial and other inducements are held out to foreign investors and these have met with some success. However, a number have proved to be of somewhat doubtful economic value and of doubtful value also from the point of view of providing employment. It would not be reasonable to expect that each and every one of these undertakings would have a guarantee of continued economic success but no provision was made to protect the different types of workers who were attracted to some of these industries with the expectation that they would have reasonable employment and security. In the last year or so there has been a rather ugly feature developing in this regard. Deputies will have seen in the public press recently a reference to an infamous firm in Britain coming here to investigate the possibility of setting up a unit.

Mr. Dillon

Infamous?

Mr. Larkin

Infamous from the point of view of the treatment of workers and their refusal and failure to recognise normal trade union negotiations. They are not prepared to recognise ordinary trade union practices and negotiations. A spokesman of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions specifically warned everyone concerned of the dangers inherent in this type of situation. He reminded this firm and other firms that there was a trade union movement in this country and that an overwhelming proportion of workers are organised in trade unions and that the rights which they fought so hard to acquire would not be readily filched from them.

Quite a number of firms have been established here in recent years and it appears to anyone who has had any contact with some of them that the responsible Minister or the Industrial Development Authority have been failing in their responsibilities because on a number of occasions it became clear that the companies concerned had got the impression that they were coming to a country in which there was a pool of unemployed who were prepared to work for anything and under any conditions. This impression could only be created by our official spokesmen in some field and it is no service to the community if this is so and if it has not been made clear by all national agencies, from Ministers down, that the Irish workers are competent workers and, given training, can equal the best but that they have a strong trade union tradition——

Mr. Dillon

Do not say "but"—"and that they have..."

Mr. Larkin

——and are not prepared to accept conditions that some of these people think they should accept.

The Taoiseach dealt with the question of devaluation and EEC membership and indicated that there are opportunities for our industries to sell more goods if they devote themselves assiduously to production, particularly in countries that have not devalued. He also referred to opportunities in the tourism field. What steps do the Taoiseach and his Ministers contemplate to deal with the situation about which we had widespread complaints last year? Were the allegations in all cases borne out or were they investigated? I do not know, but there were certainly widespread complaints of overcharging, exploitation and lack of service to tourists. There were complaints in many quarters that the whole attitude to tourists had changed in the country which had been noted for its hospitality to tourists who looked forward to visiting it because they were welcomed there not just as visitors who would assist the economy but as individuals and people who would be, to some extent, brought into Irish families. This may have arisen as a result of concentration on the larger tourist establishments catering mainly for those who are quite wealthy.

On the face of it, devaluation should provide opportunities, provided it is not exploited by the get-rich-quick section of the community who see the chance of a quick profit and take advantage of it to the subsequent disadvantage not only of the tourist industry but of our reputation generally. This approach might also develop in connection with the opportunities which we are told we have in trade with EEC countries and others that have not devalued, to sell our goods. I do not know if those who control industry here have as yet brought their mental approach up to the 1950 or 1960 stage, never mind the 1970 stage or beyond. We still have quite a section of them thinking in terms of operating behind fairly high tariff walls and reluctant to bring their thinking and methods up to date and who may again take advantage of the opportunity of doing what their opposite numbers may do in tourism, exploit a favourable situation to make a little more immediate profit without regard to the long-term interest.

Judging by newspaper reports of statements by General de Gaulle, either membership or associate membership with EEC is a prospect which is disappearing farther and farther into the distance. There is no doubt, according to the reports of General de Gaulle's latest press conference, that he has not been at all impressed and is not inclined to support entry into the Community by either Britain or Ireland.

I turn now to another problem that was briefly mentioned last evening, the exhortation—the word is hardly strong enough from what I read on the matter—in the Taoiseach's speech to keep down the demand as regards wage-rates, earnings, salaries and incomes on the grounds that real earnings have, to some extent, exceeded the growth in the economy. This is one field where you meet the problem of statistics but we cannot altogether get away from the human problems and the contribution made by the section of the community concerned. Workers' earnings in industry may have gone up but in many cases the earnings are justified because of the contribution of those workers to increased productivity and their willingness to co-operate in new techniques and new methods and their normal insistence that if they continue to increase productivity in the industry in which they are employed, thus bringing benefit to those who own or control that industry, they are entitled to some share of this increased productivity.

Workers have been seeking an adjustment in their wage rates because they need such increases for the maintenance or improvement of their standard of living. In the absence of any effective control over prices, workers are going to attempt to secure for themselves these necessary adjustments in their wages. When I refer to the lack of any effective control over prices I am not referring only to the prices of goods in the shops but also to the lack of effective control over the price of land needed for building houses and, indeed, the prices of the houses themselves, along with the prices of many other things. If there is one thing this Government can be noted for over the years it is their absolute failure to deal with the exploitation of the community by those, whether individuals or development companies, who have managed to acquire land needed for community purposes. It is all very well to say that the profit motive has to be the mainspring for development and that this motive may encourage people to invest in and develop industry. I suppose it can be said that they are at least making some contribution. But there is no defence for the people or groups who acquire land which becomes valuable only because of the expenditure of public money in developing and servicing it. A Government which fails to do anything to correct that situation must stand condemned before the public.

The Taoiseach made reference to the EEC. Would the Taoiseach care to examine the social welfare benefits and fringe benefits that apply in the Community as compared with those in this country? Look at the length of the annual holidays there, the provision of adequate superannuation schemes for those who retire and the sick pay benefits for workers. Compare that with the position here where even the direct employees of the State have not got adequate superannuation provision, sick pay and so on. At present a worker here may spend 40 years conscientiously serving an employer and at the end of that time, after a short period on the benefit scheme, he goes on to social assistance. No provision is made here for the agricultural community in this regard. Yet we are engaged in a mad gallop to get into the EEC without bringing our social benefits up to date.

Recently, the cost of coal, oil and fares was increased. Before those increases took place was there any attempt to have them investigated? We just took it for granted that the percentage increase would be passed on. Last year and the year before anthracite coal was imported from Holland and South Africa at a time when mines in this country were closing down and people unemployed. The Government were insisting on getting oil for central heating in community developments because at that stage the cost of oil was slightly cheaper. But the price of oil went up and we had to pay the extra cost.

Perhaps the Taoiseach might have a word with some of his Ministers. We have had the Minister for Labour bursting into print recently, telling us all about the wonderful things Fianna Fáil secured for the workers. The Workers' Party! He referred to the extension of holidays under the 1961 Act. Of course, what the good Minister failed to mention was the number of attempts made in this House and elsewhere to get the Government of those days to extend to workers in general what had been won by well-organised workers as a result of trade union negotiations.

The Taoiseach's predecessor both as Taoiseach and Minister, for years resisted applications for an expansion of the statutory holiday from one week to two weeks. I think it was under the aegis of the present Taoiseach, when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, that the change was made. The Minister for Labour goes around telling us about the wonderful things they did, but we know that the Government have been in office for a long number of years, and if they did not produce some small piece of progressive legislation they would not be able to fool the people to the extent they have fooled them.

A significant thing about the question of the holidays was that a Private Members' Bill was introduced here, and it was only when it was introduced that the Minister acted. The record is there. All Deputies are encouraged that there are some signs of growth in the economy——

Mr. Dillon

Watch out, brother, watch out. There are going to be developments in Great Britain and the USA which will affect that.

Mr. Larkin

The signs are there at the moment and we can only note them. Whether they come to fruition is a matter which is quite definitely not under the control of this Government, because the growth that has taken place in the economy cannot be traced to any specific policies of the Government, but rather to events which have taken place outside their control. That is the situation because of the fact that the Fianna Fáil Government, in the absence of policies, are continuing to govern without policies emanating from the Party which has so far succeeded in keeping them in office.

Over the years Fianna Fáil have boasted on numerous occasions that they do not have a policy. One aspect of their policy thinking so far as we are concerned is their indication that they would like to continue—as they did on another occasion—sowing confusion among the ranks of the organised workers who are increasingly starting to show their conviction that there is one way and one way only to make progress in this country, that is, to return to Dáil Éireann the Party which is the only one that really represents their interests.

I am glad the Minister for Labour has come into the House because I mentioned his little publicity blurb recently when he took credit on behalf of Fianna Fáil for anything good that had taken place, and neglected to mention the fact that most of what has been done in the field of social legislation was done under increasing pressure from those immediately concerned.

The workers who are satisfied that the needs of their families justify them in seeking adjustments in their wage rates will continue to do so. Adjustments have been taking place and will go on taking place, because the workers are an important section of the community and, naturally, since they contribute so much to the progress of the community they will continue to seek improvements in their standard of living in any and every respect.

Mr. P.J. Burke

It is not my intention to delay the House——

Mr. Dillon

Unduly.

Mr. P.J. Burke

—unduly this morning. I will respect democracy, and I will not keep repeating myself. One of the Deputies going out the door——

Mr. Lindsay

Which of them?

Mr. P.J. Burke

Deputy Larkin, not the Honourable James—was talking about the social services and crying about the poor. They got tenpence in the six years when they were the Government of this country. He talked a lot of tripe. He was keening and moaning about housing, about our economic position and about all the other things, and his speech this morning was all tripe from beginning to end. I am sorry to say that about an old friend but I have to be candid.

Mr. S. Dunne

Tripe is a very nice dish and very healthy.

Mr. P.J. Burke

He was keening and moaning. One would imagine that one was at a funeral in some part of the wilds. He was keening and saying that no one did anything in this country except himself. He was telling the workers that no one did anything for them only himself. He forgot that when they left office there were over 100,000 unemployed. I am sorry to go back on this because I am always a man of peace, and I like to look forward, but you have to anchor the ship somewhere. He rambled about the economy but he did not speak about the main issue. He did not compliment the Government and the Taoiseach on having had the most successful year in the history of the country. Our balance of payments is right. Our exports are going up notwithstanding the fact that our neighbours are in difficulties. We are on the right side. Other Deputies asked what will happen next year and the year after. I have often said in this House before that if there is any short cut to economic prosperity——

Mr. Lindsay

Join Taca.

Mr. P.J. Burke

——I should like my friends on the Opposition benches to declare some such constructive policy. There is only one short cut to economic prosperity and that is the one which has been tried by every nation in the world which enjoyed freedom for hundreds of years. That is the policy adopted by the Taoiseach and the Government and it is to try to encourage and expand industry, to try so far as possible to give grants and loans to industry and grants to agriculture, and in that way try to get into the export market.

The Taoiseach has had a great deal of experience in various Departments, and he is doing a very good job in his position as Taoiseach of this country. We wish him well. This has been one of our most successful years. At Budget time we try as far as possible to increase the social services. Of course, we have had a recession. All Governments experience recessions from time to time. Things are really wonderful at the present time. Things are bad in the case of our neighbour across the water in contrast to the good conditions here.

The volume of output in transportable goods industries rose in the second half of 1966. There was an increase of 9 per cent in the first quarter of 1967 and of 14 per cent in the second quarter. Reference has been made by Opposition Deputies to the money provided for the establishment of industries. If money had not been invested in industry we would not be in the economic position that we are in today. Some industries may have failed but in any sphere one must take a chance and you will not achieve 100 per cent success. The policy of Fianna Fáil is the soundest policy for this country. Under that policy we have achieved more than any other Party has.

The first thing the Coalition Government did was to sell the aeroplanes. They very nearly built a wall around the country. When Fianna Fáil introduced the Tourist Bill in 1948 I heard them saying that we were creating white elephants in order to let the stranger eat our food. I heard the then Leader of the Labour Party referring in this House to all the white elephants, all the hotels, that Fianna Fáil had built. Three months afterwards, when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, he made a great speech of which I have a record in which he said the tourist industry was a wonderful thing. In three short months, when he went from one side of the House to the other, he discovered the mistake he had made. If he had stated that he had changed his mind on greater enlightenment one would have accepted that but, without batting an eyelid, he changed over to a policy of encouraging the tourist industry.

I listened to Deputy Larkin for an hour this morning asking what had we ever done for the workers. Fianna Fáil gave the workers their first lift. Fianna Fáil is made up of workers. I do not like to see a division between workers and others. We are all workers. Even Deputies feel that they are working hard.

Mr. S. Dunne

Some are and some are not.

Mr. P.J. Burke

Housing is the responsibility of the Government, Deputy Larkin says. So it was in 1956-57 when the crows were building in some of the houses and there was not the price of a bag of cement left when the Coalition left office. We had to build up the economy and it took some time. That is not something that can be done overnight. The ship was nearly scuttled. We succeeded reasonably well in re-building the economy. We are now giving £3 million a year towards housing and we are giving as much as we can afford to industrial development. In the case of agriculture, in which we rely for help with our balance of payments, we are giving up to £16 million a year directly and indirectly.

In the matter of housing the Government did come to the aid of Dublin Corporation. At a time when Deputy Larkin was chairman of the Housing Committee, when a number of houses were falling down, we went to the Minister for Local Government and I urged him to do something worthwhile. He did something worthwhile. On his own initiative, backed by his Department, he started a scheme overnight to build over 3,000 houses and flats in Ballymun. That was a big contribution from the Government. Then the Deputy states that the Government are not interested in housing. Of course, the Government are interested in housing.

I hope to see the day when everybody will be housed, when wages will be higher and social services increased. This can be done only by increased production. This is a Christian Socialist Government. We are seriously concerned with every section. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. It is the duty of our Party to do everything possible to improve the lot of our people. At Party meetings deep concern is expressed about the need to improve the lot of the people. A cross-section of the people is represented in the Fianna Fáil Party, as in the other Parties but I claim that Fianna Fáil have gone further than any other Party in helping the weaker sections and that is the reason why we are still in office and will remain in office.

The Government have stated that they will give Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council all the money required at the present time to purchase land for building. It is due to Government policy that that money is available. There is no hold-up in house building. We are trying to get plans passed as quickly as possible. There is a snag as far as services are concerned in the suburbs of Dublin. There is a scheme to spend about £9 million on sewerage services. The City Manager has received instructions from the Government to buy up all the available land. I understand that Dublin Corporation maintain that, due to their policy, the price of land is coming down. I know it is difficult for John Citizen to buy a house today. A house that could be bought for £1,500 or £1,600 ten or 12 years ago today costs £5,000. Other countries have this problem too. I and other Members of this House have heard these problems discussed in the Council of Europe.

Deputy Lindsay has been waiting some time. I promised I would be brief. The Minister for Labour is here now. He is a kindly man, doing a very good job. If he makes occasional statements to the papers that is as it should be. If he is not heard now and again people will ask where he is. The Minister has a job to do and if, from time to time, he provokes discussion and criticism that is as it should be.

I compliment the Taoiseach and the Government on the job they have made of the country economically. They have done a great deal of good. They have looked after every section of the community. Their economic policy could not be improved on.

Mr. Lindsay

I suppose I should begin by expressing my gratitude for the defence of Deputy P.J. Burke. In a debate in which we are reviewing, as it were, the state of the nation one would naturally expect the Taoiseach, in defending his position as Leader of the Government and in defending the Government itself, to strike a note of complacency and to punctuate his utterances from time to time with an optimism calculated, if possible, to make people more complacent still. Complacency is, of course, no substitute for real wellbeing. Neither are expressions of optimism without guaranteed premises on which to base them as a guideline for the future. Neither are such utterances to be regarded as the true basis on which to build.

I regard—I want to say this straight away—such complacency, such notes of optimism, carefully struck, as nothing more or less than a smokescreen for the individual and collective ineptitude of Ministers of State. Apart altogether from matters affecting us under the various Government Departments there is the overall consideration of Government, divided as it is into the Executive and the Legislature, its position vis-à-vis the people, its position as the place where the people's rights and liberties are protected, the place where important statements of policy should be delivered, and the place where statements of policy should be fully and freely discussed by the people's representatives. Year by year, month by month, almost week by week and day by day, we are allowing, because of lack of vigilance, this Government to abandon Parliament and to make their important pronouncements extra-Parliament, whether it be at a dinner or a banquet, a dance, some of their Party branches, cumann or comhairle ceanntair throughout the country. This is the place in which to make policy pronouncements. This is the place from which statements calculated to inspire, full of good news, or even statements full of bad news, should emanate. Some day the people and, indeed, the members of the Fianna Fáil Party, will regret that they have shifted the centre of democratic power, of democratic vigilance and that liberty which always attaches to a free Parliament from this Parliament House itself right out into the highways and byways, into the big hotels and the smaller places in which men foregather.

The Government would do well, particularly its backbenchers, to take note now of the change that is going on, a change that cannot have in itself anything of good. We are living in an age of change but it is not sufficient, in my opinion, to talk of change for its own sake without examining carefully all the implications of that change.

We are about to adjourn this House in the midst of rumour, counter-rumour and half reports of the findings and recommendations of the Constitutional Committee. Deputies on both sides will go home to their various constituencies with all these rumours, counterrumours and reports of what this committee has done. Over and above that, they are subjected to the further apprehension that, while this report may be circulated, it does not mean anything. Really, after all, what matters is what the Government decide to do. That decision we will hear of at some dinner or other social function between now and 31st January next.

Government must be central. It must be authoritative. Executive acts and Executive utterances should be within easy reach of the Legislature so that the Legislature may examine them, criticise them or commend them, as the case may be. The complacency and optimism of the Taoiseach, while justifiable in some regard, are nevertheless, in my respectful opinion, nothing more than bandages over wounds that have not been properly treated.

Agriculture, our premier industry, is now being recognised as such and that by those who in the not too distant past sought to destroy it. The Taoiseach will not achieve anything inspirational from the agricultural community by going to the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis and saying: "We beat them down" and then coming into this House and saying to them through the House that the agricultural industry is our principal industry on which we must depend for an expansion of our exports. You cannot inspire on the one hand with honeyed words and on the other hand use the whip of scorpions. This kind of double talk and double action must stop if this country is to go ahead to its full limit and full capacity.

We have the sorry spectacle of seeing one section of our farming community treated with the utmost derision by ministerial action which savours of nothing but the corrosion that hatred brings with it, a hatred that chooses to use ministerial and Government power to set up a council which he is largely manipulated by the ministerial head of the Department, of which he is the chairman and on which there are people ready and willing to do his bidding and to give expression to it by way of official pronouncements. This is, indeed, a sorry spectacle of government.

In spite of everything that has been said about what has been done for the west of Ireland, we all understand what the west of Ireland means, that strip of country from the northernmost part of Donegal to West Cork. We know now that that part of our country has been and is being denuded much more successfully by a continuation of Fianna Fáil policy than it was ever denuded by the famine. I have said it before and I say it now in this House that the two greatest evils that ever hit this country, and history will record them as such, were the famine and Fianna Fáil.

Mr. S. Dunne

The three F's.

Mr. Lindsay

Fianna Fáil has peddled successfully the dope of pseudo patriotism. They have misled our people, cajoled them and gulled them into the belief that around the perpetually appearing corners of election time is the prosperity which is their ultimate and rightful goal. The corners keep on appearing but never the prosperity that is the goal. I could not help but be amused and, at the same time, appalled by the manner in which an intelligent backbencher and personal friend of mine, Deputy Dr. Hugh Gibbons, could allow himself to be deluded into saying: "I believe this Government is doing the best it can for the west of Ireland." I want to remind him of what the best his Government can do has achieved for certain counties in the West since the census of 1961.

In Galway the population has dropped by 1,697, in Leitrim, by 2,898, in Roscommon by 3,087 and in my own county of Mayo by 7,742. In Cavan there has been a drop of 2,779 and in Donegal, where the dope of pseudo patriotism seems to have eaten into almost every ballot box, there has been a drop of 5,356. Monaghan has lost 1,362. Is that the best that can be done? Is that the result of pilot schemes and all kinds of efforts? We can give an army the most resplendent of uniforms, the most wonderful boots, the best possible equipment; we can take them out on any barrack square and be proud of their performance, but without officers that inspire they can achieve nothing. We have not got in this Government the officers that inspire.

I remember the present Minister for Finance when he was Minister for Agriculture in the elections of 1965 boast of what he regarded as his greatest achievement for the West, the appointment of an official of the Department of Agriculture as a pilot officer with headquarters in Athenry to be responsible for the setting up and administration of pilot area schemes in different parts of the West. Did anyone read the pronouncement of that same officer in regard to the West Cork County Committee of Agriculture when he said that in 20 years two-thirds of the population of the area for which he is responsible would be over 50 years of age and three-fourths would be bachelors? He went on to say that the present ratio of men to women was four to one in those areas. He went further and he said that pilot schemes, while successful in the short term, were not the answer to the problems of these areas. There is a man to whom I am prepared to listen.

What are the Government's long term plans? Are they going to build decent harbours and get fishing going on that coast as it should be going? There are only two places that I know where there is movement, one in Donegal and the other in Kerry and West Cork. The remaining large tract of that coast is desolate for want of proper equipment and proper landing facilities. All of us are asking Parliamentary questions about this, that and the other landing pier and we are always being told that a survey is under way and that soundings are being taken.

Whenever I hear talk about surveys and soundings I think of the South Kerry by-election when four gentlemen arrived in Dingle Bay to take soundings, as if something was going to happen, depending on the result of the by-election. Fianna Fáil won the by-election and the little lads who came to take the soundings went away and there have not been any soundings since and nothing has happened.

There is a great opportunity for properly inspired work in the fishing world on the west coast. Our people must be properly equipped with piers and boats. Those of them who are properly inspired are doing well, some of them with small boats, much too small in my view, but they have to be small because there are no proper landing facilities. There must be a major port somewhere on the west coast. Goodness knows the money which was poured into lost causes and certain factories could have done something in this direction. What the people want to see is action. No longer will our people be content with the cross-roads speech in which vague promises are given. They are finished with that. The best of our people have gone away and these figures clearly demonstrate that the people were forced to go away because it was the only course open to them. They were not prepared any longer to live on the pittances paid by way of social welfare, paid out of the Central Fund and exercised to purchase their franchise. The best of them have rejected it and have gone and we are left with the remnants of a once proud people who believed that with self-government great things would come to them. All that self-government, and particularly the present Government, has done for them has been to lead them on hopefully in a hopeless state from day to day. Our people have been demoralised by false promises or promises that were not based on any real foundations.

I am sick and tired hearing people talk about saving the west. The west will not be saved by money alone. The west can be revived by proper inspiration and the revival of their faith in themselves, their families and even their smallholdings and fishing piers. That faith must be backed by the good works of a Government which is giving an earnest of true endeavour by providing the money with which to do these things. Talking about the west has become a cult. It is on a par with talking about Georgian houses in Dublin. There were people in Dublin talking about the west who were never in the west and do not know what they are talking about. They feel it is a question of money.

This Government has another great smokescreen, what they call decentralisation. Decentralisation to my mind means the equal distribution of money, of industry, of the work attendant upon that industry and the work attendant upon further production from our land. Will this be achieved by sending a part of a Department against its will to Castlebar? I said in the debate on the Department of Finance that this will not open one empty house even within a mile of Castlebar, a house abandoned because of Government policy. Neither will it turn one fallow field into production. The best description of it is that it will be Government by mandarin. This announcement should have been made in this House where it could be debated in relation to the merits of an area and discussed side by side with the just and humane claims of the people so vitally concerned.

We are not dealing here with machinery or cement blocks when we are talking about the up-rooting and transplanting of families. I have the greatest sympathy with the people who suddenly find themselves in a state of apprehension in regard to the future. From time to time Fianna Fáil boast about increasing social welfare benefits. I am all in favour of increases in social welfare benefits where social welfare benefits are due. I am all in favour of the abolition of the means test for old age pensioners, particularly those living alone. It does not matter what the cost is. In the last analysis a nation; like a family, can be judged on how it treats its old. All Governments have done their bit toward improving the lot of old age pensioners, widows and orphans, the blind and disabled. We would all like to give them more. The way in which we can give them more is to make a pool available to those who deserve it. Social assistance is not the answer to production; it is quite clear now that it has failed. The extension or abolition, as the case may be, of the employment period orders which was started last year is not the answer. It will not work without what I call the inspiration.

Yesterday we had the Minister for Local Government speaking in a state of semi-pique because he had not been able to reply to the debate on his Estimate. We had all kinds of arguments about houses, who built them and who did not, and so on, and then with a sombre look which was meant to be understood as a pained expression of sincerity he called upon everybody to assist him by desisting from saying anything about planning or planning permission or how it was got, or how it was not got. He said it would be easier for him and for those charged with planning to do their work if Opposition Deputies and, I suppose, other people ceased criticising.

It would be very easy to do everything if nobody criticised or complained. There is no doubt but that throughout the country the belief is rife that planning and planning permission are the highest pieces of corrupt activity. How and where did that belief start? Surely no critic said it initially without meaning it or without any evidence? There may not be the slightest truth in it; it may well be, and I believe it to be the case generally, that those charged with the administration of the Planning Act are doing their work fairly and well. But side by side with that there is the particular baby that was conceived, delivered and nurtured into a giant that is now strangling the Fianna Fáil Party, the belief that you cannot get anything unless you are a member of the Party or go to a Fianna Fáil TD or councillor.

This is the monster that is frightening the Minister for Local Government and not Fine Gael criticism or Labour criticism. It is the monster of Fianna Fáil's own creation that is now at their own throats and strangling them with rumours of corruption, corruption and more corruption. If they had any knowledge or evidence in time that this monster was at their throats I think they would not have started an addition to the family under the name of Taca. Taca was founded for a corrupt purpose; it is corrupt in practice and it is being sponsored by people who have no national ideals, who are really concerned with the Fianna Fáil Party only because they are in power, but are concerned with their own advancement and with being able, through their membership, to get greater portions of the national cake. They are getting it and that again demoralises our people. Do not be optimistic or complacent when the cancer of corruption and rumoured corruption is destroying our people's morale.

In local government also we have had a change in the attitude to water supplies. When the present Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries held the portfolio for Local Government we had regional water schemes. I looked at some of the figures and it would cost infinitely more to do one little parish in my constituency than to buy out the whole parish. Of course, it was never intended that the scheme would be worked: it was all part of the grand plan to keep the people's hopes alive and keep them going. Now there is a change over to the group water scheme, the smaller and less ambitious one but probably the right one.

Concerning health, we have had great talk about new deals for nurses and pictures being taken. When are they going to stop? When are we going to get something in the form of a Bill in this House? A former Minister for Health promised it. He moved out and a new Minister came and he repromised. But when are we getting it in the form of a green paper with the provisions set out in black and green so that we can discuss them to the ultimate advantage of the medical profession and the people they serve?

Somebody said that ten shillings a day was not overcharging for people in the general wards of hospitals and that if they had any complaints about bills it was because they had opted to go as private or semi-private patients. I do not believe it. I believe that the main cause of our huge health bills in local authorities is that county councillors and TDs who happen to have the ear of a particular manager are able to plead financial stringency and get bills wiped out for people who could pay them twice over without noticing it. If everyone who had the ability to pay had the conscience to see that he paid I think the deserving people would be able to get the service for far less than ten shillings a day.

Sooner or later—and sooner rather than later—there must be a full review of the health situation. We should not do it piecemeal or, as I believe we are doing it, illegally at the moment in the matter of dispensary doctors with no mandate for ministerial actions such as are being taken. Yet, I would be prepared to close an eye to it if it is achieving a purpose but the dental and optical position must be dealt with and I agree with Deputy Dr. Gibbons that this must be done comprehensively. I think the Fine Gael scheme is the best one—do it on an insurance basis, and in that way take away this awful rates burden. Many people here have complained about rates which are not related to ability to pay, to income, or to anything but the demand to satisfy the administrative machine which must be met. They say: "We must put a few pence here and a few shillings there; send it out to Joe Soap and let him pay." That is the simple story of the whole thing.

I think the Minister for Transport and Power would do well to extend the dialling system more quickly and get rid of that irritant in the remote areas, the special service charge and also to consider in regard to tourism their proposals about building hotels and motels and the areas in which they are supposed to build them.

We come to the Department of Justice which appears to be hell bent on a peculiar gimmick of its own, to delude people into believing that they are getting cheap law in some way by trying to revise various ways in which legal transactions have been done. If anybody examines the costs of stamps in the Central Office of the Circuit Court now and compares it with the cost a few years ago he will find that whatever chipping has been done in one way to save money, the litigant is certainly paying more now in stamp duty.

I do not think the Government or the Department of Justice appreciates the great work being done by our police force not so much in the spectacular area of detecting crime, but in the other quiet area that is never seen, of preventing crime.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. Lindsay

I am not so sure that an enactment passed by the Oireachtas some years ago abolishing, except for certain reserved killings, capital punishment has had the success it was intended to have and probably genuinely believed to have. In the debate on the Department of Justice last year I called for a review of this enactment in order to have incorporated in a new provision additional crimes which would carry the death sentence, not necessarily to be enforced at all times but to be there. I believe from my experience now and from what I have read of things in other countries that capital punishment is the real deterrent, whether it is exercised or not. A gentleman or lady will think twice before casually depriving another of his life if they have the knowledge that capital punishment is there. We hear far too much about humanity, about this awful business of taking a life. The people who indulge in this kind of trash are thinking only of the person sentenced. But what of the family and those to whom grief has been brought? What of the person whose life, in many cases without warning, has been taken away? It is all very well to lean to the liberal or what could be described in many cases as psuedo-liberal? The real conservative is the true progressive when we come to examine the whole thing. I would urge on the Government a rapid re-examination in this regard.

Somebody mentioned External Affairs. I do not know that it merits any very serious consideration because the Minister for External Affairs must now be regarded as the funny-man of the United Nations, the man prepared to put up schemes affecting places as far apart as South Africa and Vietnam and covering the overall question of nuclear power. External Affairs would be far better employed in having its forces used in trying to improve our relationship with other countries and our marketing possibilities with other countries.

Somebody called for an increase in the staff of the Land Commission. I think it was my good, honest and obviously sincere friend, Deputy Dr. Gibbons. A few years ago it cost £1 million in the Land Commission to administer £2 million. Surely we do not want any more? Anyway it was believed when the Land Commission was set up and the late Deputy Paddy Hogan brought in the first Land Act that the Commission's work would be done in ten years from that date. It may be that the threat of Castlebar is but the prophecy of its ultimate demise.

Mr. Dillon

I think it is going to have twins. We will have two Departments of Lands, one in Castlebar and the other in Merrion Street.

Mr. S. Dunne

One of the two will hardly be legitimate.

Mr. Dillon

It will grow and prosper.

Mr. Lindsay

In the field of education, when the Minister brought in his Estimate last year—not the present Estimate—I told him his transport system at that time appeared on paper at least to be better than ours. While it is reasonably good, it still has a lot of trouble which could well be avoided. Again, get rid of irritations early. I will not say any more on the educational field because I understand we will have a debate on it in the new year, except this: that, when asked about where we were going to get the money for our policy, we replied from buoyancy of revenue. This Government have got it from buoyancy of revenue, but they would not accept that from us at the time.

Permit me for a moment, Sir, to deal briefly with the Anglo-Irish Agreement, EEC, banking and devaluation. Devaluation has been offered here as something likely to help us. It will of course with certain countries which have not devalued. But when the currency of a strong and powerful neighbour, on whose market we rely, has been devalued that neighbour has been weakened and the help we can expect from that neighbour must also be weakened. Devaluation, having regard to our marketing position vis-à-vis Great Britain, is nothing about which we should be rejoicing. On the other hand, we should be glad it was not worse. Let us beware that this is not just an initial step in devaluation and that another one will not follow hard in the new year. We hope it does not, but the possibility is always there. That is why I think the complacency and notes of optimism in the Taoiseach's speech are smokescreens for any kind of foresight into the future.

As for EEC and the new concept of association we are prepared to consider, but only if it means being followed up by full membership, is there anything more beautifully phrased to fool the people again? Now we are going for association. If we get association, full membership follows. But can you tell the people when full membership will follow? This morning there was a breakfast meeting of the five Common Market countries to which, according to the news, the French representative had not been invited. This, of course, is beautiful stuff, beyond our political comprehension.

Talk of devaluation makes one talk of money. One of the greatest tearings of the props from under the edifice of public confidence here was the action of the Minister for Finance in 1965 forcing the banks to disclose their deposits. That is something which should be reviewed. The Minister for Labour has been mentioned here both by Deputy Larkin and Deputy Burke. Deputy Burke said a man must say something sometimes to be noticed.

Mr. Dillon

Did he really say that?

Mr. Lindsay

Yes. Of course, this is probably not the kind of post-funeral oration we are accustomed to from Deputy Burke. That remark was probably inspired to lead the Labour people and the trade unions concerned into the belief that poor Deputy Hillery had to say something but that he did not mean it.

Dr. Hillery

I am sure Deputy Burke did not mean that.

Mr. Lindsay

There was the great apologetic, Deputy Burke, calling us: "My dear friends." One would imagine that we were having some class of religious service here.

Mr. Dillon

It would not be for the first time.

Mr. S. Dunne

It would not be far wrong.

Mr. Lindsay

I should like to say that the trade unions should be extremely careful to stick to their own principles of trade unionism——

Dr. Hillery

Hear, hear.

Mr. Lindsay

—— and so far as political levies are concerned that should be a matter for individual members of the trade unions.

Mr. S. Dunne

As it is now.

Mr. Lindsay

As it is now. The Taoiseach has no easy task. The fact that over the years there were certain signs of growth here and there, certain improvements in our balance of payments, is not a matter for complacency. While we may be dubbed moaners and groaners by members of the Fianna Fáil Party, and even by cliché speaking commentators, it is necessary that we should be vigilant at all times, and vigilance does not mean being aware of the present only; it means casting one's eye so far as one can into the future.

The Government should quickly stop fooling our people and stop treating Parliament as a mere playground and dinner tables and comhairle ceanntair as of real importance. The Government are not inspiring the people with an earnest of their endeavour by their actions. If they did that there might be room for real complacency and real optimism, but at the moment it is, as I described it before, a smokescreen for individual and collective ministerial ineptitude, ineptitude that is begotten of a lack of knowledge of what to do in any emergency. In an emergency you must call upon the plans you have made. It is not enough to snarl in the wings and threaten. No member of our community, be it farming or otherwise, will for all time put up with snarling in the wings. They want fair play and the Government are not giving it.

Mr. S. Dunne

It is very unfortunate that my learned and gracious colleague, Deputy Burke, did not find it possible to tarry awhile. He had to rush out once again to shoulder single-handedly the tremendous burden of the constituency which I know awaits him on the far side of the entrance doors of the chamber. Wherever he is he radiates an almost sacramental bonhomie. Indeed, he seemed to be positively seasonal because he could well have been Santa Claus. So far as one could follow what he was talking about, the tenor of his contribution to this important debate was summed up for me, at any rate, by this sentence which I wrote down: "Things are really wonderful at the present time, wonderful." That is exactly the kind of thing I would have expected Santa Claus to say while patting little children gently on the head at Todco's or Switzers or Clerys. It is about on the one level with that.

I wonder what Deputy Burke's constituents, who also happen to be mine although I know he assumes the proprietorship of every vote and every soul in the area which we represent, would think of that sentence to which he gave expression in the debate on the Taoiseach's Estimate this morning: "Things are really wonderful at the present time, wonderful"? I am provoked to make that inquiry because at this very moment when we are talking here, there is a family of four who have been driven from a flooded basement in Santry. They have nowhere to go to live and Dublin Corporation officials and the manager have said they will not provide them with accommodation. I wonder how that sentiment would appeal to another family of the same number, four, which I have in mind, a young married couple, and the wife is expecting a baby in a week's time? They are living in a single overcrowded room to which there is attached a wall press and this wall press is described as an additional room. I wonder how this sentiment which was given expression to by our reverential colleague would appeal to the parties concerned at this holy time in the mouth of Christmas?

Reading a summary of the Taoiseach's speech in the evening papers last night it struck me that anyone straying into this House, or anyone coming to this country and reading in the papers the Taoiseach's speech introducing his Estimate, must think that surely he has reached the promised land. The Taoiseach painted a picture which suggested that behind us and behind the Government was a record of unparalleled achievement, and ahead of us lay a future rosier and more hopeful than that which extends before any other country in the world. This shows, of course, to people like ourselves who know the situation about housing, about jobs, about wages, about the cost of living—a matter which I hope to deal with—the tremendous facility the Taoiseach's advisers have in the use of words to convey an impression which has no reality in fact.

The question of housing is one which comes immediately to the mind of anybody who thinks about the condition of the country and must be the primary consideration of anyone who wants to discover how the bulk of the people living anywhere are getting along. The housing situation, particularly in Dublin, defies adequate description. One could parade an endless array of clichés such as "scandalous", "shocking", and so on, but at the end of it one would be left with the feeling that words have not yet been coined to give expression to the frustration and the torment that flow from the house hunger which we are experiencing, particularly in Dublin, at the present time. Over 100 years ago we had a food famine. Now we have a house famine, certainly in the Dublin area. It is probably not realistic to compare the two things. Anybody who has had contact with the problem in this city over a long period could not help but become affected by the great despondency and despair which have settled upon so many thousands of people in this city because of their long wait for somewhere to live. This has been due to many causes. I would say the principal cause has been the complete lack over the last ten years of recognition of their proper responsibility on the part of those who had control of housing policy in the Custom House, allied to the general unconcern obvious at Dublin City Hall in regard to housing. Things drifted from bad to worse and a bottleneck situation eventually developed and we are now left literally trying to do the impossible, trying to squeeze through the bottleneck numbers for whom accommodation cannot possibly be made available as quickly as the demand would indicate.

The Government and the Minister for Local Government have boasted about the Ballymun scheme. I suppose you could say that the Ballymun scheme does represent an effort at planning a coherent unit designed to embrace all the side essentials associated with a housing scheme, that is to say, schools, shopping centre, church, and so on. On the other hand, the siting of the Ballymun scheme was clearly indicative of the Government's lack of resolution and their willingness to run away from the problem, which was to find within a reasonable distance of the central city area a site on which flats of this kind could be built. Is it realistic planning? Is it fair to the people concerned that there should be in the middle of a rural area multi-storey blocks, some of the highest buildings in Ireland, on the fringe of an airport with all the manifest dangers attending that proximity? It seemed to me from the word "go" to be a foolish proposition but it was pursued, the theory being that you could get this land easily and there was no disturbance involved of anybody in the centre of the city. Disturbance should not have been the consideration.

I know people who live in the flats in Ballymun and who work in factories, for instance, in Kilmainham. They have to be at work at 7 a.m. They have no means of transport to their jobs except by grace and favour, possibly, of bus drivers driving very early morning buses called "ghost" buses, which are principally for the use of CIE employees. Some of the men whom I know personally—this is not hearsay—are going into bad health because of having to travel to and from their places of employment without adequate provision being made by the State or by CIE for their transportation. By no stretch of the imagination can this be regarded as satisfactory planning. However, the flats have been erected at Ballymun and they are now a fact. I hope to God we will never have occasion to regret that they were built where they are built. I shall say no more than that. But it is a frightening experience for anyone to go to the 14th floor of these dwellings when there is a big plane going into Dublin airport.

On the general question of housing in Dublin, we had a most extraordinary speech made earlier this year, I think, by the Minister for Local Government concerning the desirability of local authorities acquiring land for building. Now let me put the facts before the House. Around the perimeter of this city practically every square foot of land has been bought up by the speculative builders, many of whom never put one brick on top of another, but many of whom manipulated the finances in the background, and many of whom still do. These people arrived in this city, looked over the situation, and bought the land. More recently perhaps they are buying it at a dearer rate, but they have now practically acquired all the land around this city. Then along comes the Minister for Local Government, who must know the situation, saying that Dublin Corporation should go out and buy land and we had Deputy Burke this morning saying the Government will give all the money the corporation requires to purchase land.

What is the position in relation to the price of land? This is something which goes to the very kernel of the entire situation from the point of view of housing costs. Land prices around Dublin city have been driven up to lunar heights, it can be said, for want of a more descriptive adjective, by virtue of the fact that all the land available has been grabbed by the speculative builders. The selling of houses is now such a profitable racket that these land speculators can afford voluntarily to vie with one another in driving the price of land in and around Dublin higher and higher. Here is an article from the Irish Times of September 26th. The banner line reads: “Land for building may go up to £10,000 an acre.” The article says:

The £26,000 paid for the 3½ acres of building land at Rochestown Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, has raised the question in many minds: Where is it all going to end? If the Dublin County Council does not allow builders to spread their wings into the green belt and a high density of houses is forced on small areas the day is not too far off when small pockets of land in and around Dublin will be anything up to £10,000 an acre. This is no guess but the concensus of opinion among leading auctioneers and builders. The Dun Laoghaire property works out at a record sum of more than £8,000 an acre, if fees and stamp duty are included. It was bought by a well-established firm of building contractors who have planning permission for a density of eight houses to the acre.

As a matter of fact, in this particular instance, I happen to know that planning permission for a lower density was refused two or three years ago.

Generally land for building in the suburbs, without planning permission, commands from £2,500 to £4,000 an acre. That is for big lots of 20 acres and upwards. The big buyer takes that situation in his stride, moving in with his team of lawyers and architects.

Flying in with his flock of creditors would be far more apposite. This is a most interesting article. I commend it. It sets out the position as it was last September. It has not improved since. Last week at Killiney a famous firm of nurserymen sold 80 acres for a sum in the neighbourhood of £250,000, 80 acres of unserviced agricultural land.

Mr. James Tully

And 50 people lose their employment as a result.

Mr. S. Dunne

Exactly. I suppose that is one of the inevitable results. It is one of the sad results of this kind of thing.

Mr. Dillon

Of inflation. The rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. Will someone, for God's sake, ask the Minister for Finance to put on his spectacles and read in the Central Bank Report that article? He will find out how old-fashioned Jacobsson is and how antiquated Keynes has become Jacobsson is vindicated and Keynes has gone down the drain, the drain to which he belonged and out of which he should never have been extracted.

Mr. S. Dunne

Does the Deputy mind now if I come back to the housing situation in Dublin?

Mr. Dillon

It is rooted in inflation, the inflation that Keynes commended, and it is that which is making land dearer, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. It is the result of the unlovely project of Keynes and the Bloomsbury gang.

Mr. S. Dunne

People who do not know a great deal about Keynes would be puzzled to know whom the Deputy meant. They might think he was a county footballer, or something. Housing is a fundamental of any society. Jobs are essential. So are wages. But the family unit must have a house.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. S. Dunne

Each family must have a house. The greatest torment in life is possibly that engendered by compelling two families to share the one house. That is my opinion after 20 years' of observation of our social problems. There are others in this House who, I am certain, meet every week people who are forced by the housing shortage to live with in-laws, people who weep salt tears when they tell us about their problems. It is easy to be cynical and unmoved. No doubt the repetition of hardship does bring about a certain insensitivity.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. S. Dunne

Possibly it is just as well. It may be a defence mechanism because, as I say, it could have very detrimental effects upon those listening to these tales of woe if they had not some way in which to defend themselves. Housing is the outstanding social problem and I do not believe we can say that we have anything like a satisfactory answer to the housing problem until we cut deep into that problem. In Dublin the problem can be observed on a magnificent scale because here we have the natural increase in population plus the unfortunate, but seemingly inescapable, trend of desertion of the countryside. The result is that the housing problem grows more acute all the time. Over-crowding, particularly in corporation dwellings, presents a picture of unrelieved torment. I cannot describe it in any other way. But I am afraid there are people who never come into contact with these problems or, if they do, they have the ability never to feel for those who are suffering; they look upon these people as a class apart and do not see the problems as the concern of public representatives. I do not think Dáil Éireann has any reality or any public life if we cannot make an effort to solve this particular aspect of our social problems.

The Taoiseach, no doubt quoting figures provided for him by the Minister for Local Government, would seem to boast about the alleged achievements of the Government in the matter of housing, particularly in the past year. In a very recent report of the Dublin Corporation it was shown that this city needs 34,000 new dwellings by 1971. This is not a political examination by my Party or by any other Party. These are the estimates arrived at by officials of the corporation and shown in a report to the Manager. Of these 34,000 houses it is estimated that 20,000 must be supplied by Dublin Corporation. At this point of time there are approximately 8,500 families who need immediate re-housing, whose condition is such as to demand instant action.

Of course, we are not getting that action because the houses are not there. There is only a trickle of houses coming to us from the Coolock scheme and a very uncertain return of flats from the Ballymun scheme with nobody able to say when that scheme will be finished or at what point of time we will be able to get X flats from it for the people who are waiting. This 34,000 figure includes dwellings condemned as unfit for human habitation, condemned as dangerous and overcrowded. It represents families who are sub-tenants of Dublin Corporation, families which are deemed to be medical cases which would be recommended for re-housing, families living in houses awaiting demolition, in houses which are due for re-development, in houses which are hardly fit for habitation at all.

It is not unusual to find 15 people living in a four-roomed corporation house. In some four-roomed corporation houses there are three families. That beggars appreciation. On the other hand, there are working men in this city being compelled to pay six guineas a week for two and threeroomed flats. I know two bus conductors whose flat wages are in the neighbourhood of 12 guineas a week, each has two children; they are living in two-roomed flats and each man is paying out of his 12 guineas a rent of 6 guineas. And one man told me that to get into his flat he had to pay £12 for the key. People are still living in Keogh Barracks although I believe that steps are being taken at last to get them out of there. I believe the Marshalsea is also being attended to.

What Government can take any pride out of that situation as the Taoiseach seemed to be trying to do? Surely it is deplorable that there are people at this moment, coming up to Christmas, who look forward to the coming year with absolute black despair, who have lost all faith in the things that public representatives and politicians say to them, who are becoming more and more disillusioned with governments generally. Is that a healthy situation? It is undoubtedly the situation which is developing and I do not think the Taoiseach helps it by trying to paper over the cracks in his policy and in the activities of the Government since it came to office. Nothing adequate has been done in the matter of housing.

Dublin Corporation has given a good deal of its time to this matter. The Housing Committee has been practically in continuous session since the local election but I am not satisfied that we have achieved this sense of urgency without which this problem will never be solved. I have often before mentioned the conditions of affairs found here by the first inter-Party Government which came into office when some present Members of the House were in knickerbockers. At that time 30,000 new houses were needed and in something like ten to 12 years much of that need had been satisfied.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. S. Dunne

That was due to the tremendous energy and enthusiasm brought to the task by the Government of the day and particularly by the late Deputy Tim Murphy.

Mr. Dillon

If ever a man killed himself doing his job it was Tim Murphy.

Mr. S. Dunne

All the black-guardism that goes on under the guise of political argument does not take away from that fact.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. S. Dunne

As we become more and more mature in Ireland, we see figures emerging as giants who were depicted to the Irish nation in their heyday as pygmies and, in some cases, as traitors. The judgment of history is now giving them their rightful stature. There has been no bringing to this problem the fanatical attempt to solve it that there should be. Let me define what I mean by fanatical—dedicated, idealistic application, unremitting labour, with one object in view, to bring about the end of the problem by the use of all civilised and legal means. That is not there. The drive is just not there. This Government are characterised by one overall factor, which has little to do with policy, and which is very evident at times of by-elections. There is one unifying factor in this Government, that is, the desire to remain where they are at all costs. While this may be a natural thing, it is just not good enough for the country that it should be run purely with that end in view. The purpose and function of a Government should not simply be to govern in such a way as they think will ensure the continued life of the political Party to which they are attached, but to act in such a way as will bring a better life to the people over whom they govern for the time being.

There is so much confusion and bungling by the present administration that I cannot find it seriously within my mind to think that there is a great deal of political distance in this administration. No one, for one single, solitary moment, believes that there is any integrity whatever in the charade that you are performing in connection with the Common Market. Everybody over seven years of age knows full well that this business of going to Paris and making long and seemingly knowledgable statements about our position in relation to the Common Market, and in relation to Europe, is pretence and that the Government's activities and actions in relation to the EEC are predicated and conditioned upon what Britain does.

I am glad the Taoiseach is here so that I can say this to him. As far as we could judge, he went along to meet General de Gaulle and as far as we can read the newspapers, he said to General de Gaulle: "We want to get into the Common Market", and, as the Taoiseach has been saying to us, and as his predecessor in office said, that we would go it alone. It appears that the General said: "By all means come in", and what happened then? The Taoiseach was left haymaking and he had to beat a retreat into a sheltered position. It was a most undignified performance. Nobody at any stage believed that we could independently go into the Common Market if Britain were to remain outside, and exist. Yet this masquerade has continued.

Similarly there is the idea that there has been what has been called "growth rate". I am very doubtful about all this paraphernalia of language associated with economics and whether it has any integrity. I would be very interested if I could have the benefit of the knowledge of persons who make a study of this thing. I would be very interested to get an answer to one question—how much of this body of polysyllabic literature showered on us from all quarters has any bearing upon real life? In other words, what is this thing called "growth" and how far do the measures taken by the Government affect the whole question of growth? I do not think they affect the situation one little bit because the Government's attitude is one of laissez faire, to let things drift along the lazy river and to do as little as possible, in the hope that the old canal barge will not sink, and to let the people who come after them do the worrying.

That seems to be the approach of the Government to our problems. They talk about industrial development and so on, and beyond offering a few bribes to international entrepreneurs, some of whom have obviously highly doubtful financial origins, they do not seem to have done anything of any value. A great deal of money has been made available to induce them to come here. I am not against inducing people to come here but we have had people here who do not seem to have known how to go about their business properly. We have had men and girls going without their wages because factories went out of business. The Electra factory in Ballyfermot is an example. I heard of others but in case my information is not correct, I will not mention names. This reflects one fact, that is, that there has not been a proper investigation into the kind of people who come here, to see if they are bona fide industrialists bringing with them the so-called skills.

On the question of skills, I remember being in Germany two or three years ago with the present Minister for Education and some other Deputies, and we availed of the opportunity to visit some Irish workers in Solingen, which is about 80 miles from Bonn. These workers were mostly from Limerick, and Munster generally, and we had a look at what they were doing in the factory. The factory was not all that different from the worst-run factories we have here, it was just as depressing and as dirty, just as insanitary and as cold. These young people were engaged in making a small weighing machine. They were being trained to make this thing and it was said that this firm was going to do this later on in Ireland. The job for which they were brought to Germany to train, at such great expense, would have been picked up by any of them in three or four days in Ireland. The weighing machine consisted only of a coiled circular spring inside a small box which in turn was connected with the part of the machine on which one stands. In reality it appears that these workers were being brought over as cheap labour and were being paid as apprentices. That makes me think that this whole business of industrial development, as pursued under Fianna Fáil, is a highly-suspect operation.

We in the Labour Party think that, rather than give these large sums of money as at present to our continental visitors, it would be a far better thing for the Government to initiate, by means of some special agency, the erection of factories and the promotion of industries directly, particularly in areas where, as we know, the population is falling rapidly. It would be far better that should be done and industries be provided in such areas, notably in places like West Limerick, than have the wholesale bribery of the population to vote Fianna Fáil which we discovered is going on now. Instead of giving hand-outs in the shape of unemployment assistance to farmers in the West for the purpose of trying to keep intact a few miserable, attenuated and shivering Dáil seats, it would be far better national policy and better for the people living there, that that money should be utilised to create industries related to the agricultural produce of the area concerned.

It does not seem to me that any effort is being made in that direction except at the time of a by-election or possibly a general election. This exercise of going around the country springing front page stories—which has been standard practice of Fianna Fáil —in by-election areas, for the purpose of winning a few votes must be condemned because it adds to the general sum of cynicism and lack of belief that is being developed in this country and is being pursued and pushed by interested parties to secure a disrespect for Dáil Éireann, to set the idea into the public mind so far as possible, that matters and problems, such as those we have to deal with here, can be more effectively dealt with outside by people who are not elected by anybody but appointed by themselves. All this activity by Fianna Fáil, this petty stuff of trying to win a few votes on the eve of a by-election by means of false promises, must be condemned.

I want to ask the Taoiseach to take his courage in his hands and do something about these house racketeers concerning whom I have spoken here repeatedly over the past couple of years. Perhaps mine is the only voice raised in this matter——

Mr. Dillon

Oh, no.

Mr. S. Dunne

—— in the particular localised sense that I do raise it. Not for a moment do I suggest that Deputy Dillon would be loth to raise a matter of this kind, or any other matter, if he felt it necessary, but I want to emphasise the fact that the housing of the working class people of Dublin is being hampered and hamstrung and interfered with by the concessions afforded to the speculative builders who are making gross and exorbitant profits at the expense of the ordinary people.

The real heroes and heroines of our time are the young working boys and girls who save to get married because it would defeat the courage of the much more mature to essay what they have to face. Let us look at it for a moment. Any such young couple thinking of getting a house must appreciate that to get the right to go into the house, a purchase-type house, they must find at least £700. I defy any Member of Dáil Éireann to save £700 out of his allowance which is much more than most of these boys and girls earn. But they do it. In addition to that deposit, they must find money to furnish it, say a minimum of £500. If one looks at the quality of the house, what does one find? One such estate on the fringe of the city, built by a well-known firm was examined by engineers after it had been tenanted by the purchasers. Some 200 defects were found in a fraction of the house, all building defects.

That is the kind of house they will get, a jerrybuilt job, probably built by hedge carpenters who would not know one end of a hammer from another, let alone not having served their time, who are prepared to work in lump, all the hours that God sends, probably so that they can go back and buy a few more head of stock. It is the same with the other trades. That is commonplace. The young couple pay a deposit of £700 on a shoddy house and another £500 for furniture which will not be the highest achievement of the craftsman's art. Assuming they get a local authority loan their weekly outlay for the next 35 years will be in the nighbourhood of £5. Very probably when the increasing rates become fully due after ten years, their outlay will be in the neighbourhood of £7 a week.

These are the heroes and heroines of our day but they are being preyed upon, and their financial blood is being sucked by the vampires—and they are nothing less—who pose as public benefactors, the so-called speculative builders. Not every builder is such a man, nor every speculative builder, but they exist and the Government do nothing about them. I have asked—so have others—about the robbery prices, the stick-up prices— these are the only words that describe them because people are, as it were at the end of a gun—but nothing will be done about them. These people have too much pull to have anything done about them. They are too "well-got." If things go as it is intended by some people they should go, we may not have the gentlemen to whom I am referring around this House much longer. Their spokesmen and representatives are in this House, but they are only here because they bought their way into it.

A building grant is provided by the Government. A great boast is made that this grant is provided to enable people to purchase their own houses. Is the Taoiseach aware that the house purchaser never sees that grant? For a long time the grant of £275—incidentally it has remained the same for a long number of years—has been transmitted directly from the Department of Local Government to the builder, who pockets it, and the house purchaser for whom it is alleged to be intended never sees it. It simply becomes an addendum to the price of the house by virtue of that arrangement. It simply helps inflate prices more.

There has been a great deal of talk about the need for housing on the south side of Dublin. The gentlemen I have been referring to come into this, too. If the Grand Canal is turned into a sewer—I have not expressed myself publicly for or against this proposal because I had not the opportunity of attending the corporation meeting at which it was discussed—then some of the greatest beneficiaries will be these speculative builders. I wonder how much interest—I would not like to say "influence" because I do not believe the officials of the corporation are capable of being unduly influenced—they have in this proposal. I would like to ask, as a matter of general public concern, would the Taoiseach himself, who knows Dublin pretty well, not think it a painful concept to envisage Mespil Road, for instance, without the canal as we now know it? If there is an alternative way of doing the job, it should be found rather than disturbing the canal. I am not very much impressed by the arguments of the inland waterways people. I have passed up and down the canal as often as anyone and I have only seen a boat on it once or twice.

Mr. Dillon

You have seen the swans.

Mr. S. Dunne

Yes, the swans, the ducks, the goslings and beautiful trees. I have even seen Kavanagh on it. Beauty is there and we have little enough of it in the city. It is something we should guard and protect. There are many people in all Parties in this House who feel strongly that this proposal has been thrust too far and too quickly and that there are alternatives.

I, in common with others, have been in some of the new towns in England. Some of them like Welwyn Garden City are now 50 years old. It has been found possible in England to drain very substantial areas without any proposals of this kind by the construction of sewage farms and disposal works. I wonder why that could not be done here. People like myself with no technical knowledge are at a disadvantage when told by an engineer of the corporation that this is the way to do it or when told by the manager that any other way would cost too much. One must assume that the technical officers know more than one does about these matters, unless one is an egotistical fool altogether.

I believe there are two essential things. First, the need for housing development on the south side is undoubtedly very great and must be met. But the Minister should not just dig in his heels and say this is the only way it can be done. He should direct that the possibility of doing it some other way should be investigated. My plea is only in the interest of the beauty of the place. We live in a drab and mundane world. The harsh realities of life are forced upon our minds frequently enough without our endeavouring to vandalise such of the good as there is about us. For anybody who has lived in Dublin for any length of time there is a feeling that the city is losing its character. Sections of the Grand Canal are part of that character and of the more attractive side of Dublin. It would be a pity to lose them.

I do not say all this in any criticism whatever of Dublin Corporation. I recognise the corporation to be a very responsible public body, giving of their time in the main without any recompense and acting on the advice of their technical officers. I do not think it is right to pillory them in any way in this matter. Commonsense and reason should be appealed to. I would ask the Taoiseach, who, I know, has just as keen an appreciation of what should be preserved as anybody, to look at this and see what can be done before it is too late. It does not seem to me to be a reasonable proposition that the canal can ever be restored if this sewer is built or, if it can, the cost will be enormous. If the job is going to be that expensive, why not do it outside the city in an area where it will not cause offence and will not detract from the existing amenities, as they say.

I want to say a word about the rents of corporation houses. The idea of differential rents was first introduced a good while ago. It was based on a very simple notion of social justice which said it was not right that people in very distressed circumstances should have to pay as high a rent as those working and relatively well off. I know from my acquaintance with those who promoted the idea at the outset that its purpose was a very simple one. As they envisaged it working out, it should have been an uncomplicated operation but, like so many things in life, it was a good idea which got into the hands of people intent upon manipulating it for another purpose.

The differential rents system, as it is called in Dublin and elsewhere, was a method not primarily to relieve distress and enable people to pay less rent, but a method of reducing the overall cost of housing in the county council or corporation administration or, to put it another way, a method of keeping down the rates contribution under the head of housing. There has now grown up in Dublin city, at least, a system of inquisition into means of families which, by any standard, can be described only as highly objectionable.

Families living in corporation houses, or families about to take up residence in corporation houses, are asked to reveal their total income down to the last penny. I do not think that is socially desirable but the apparatus is set up and it is so effective that as the result of an inquiry, any person who is a member of the corporation can be told what any individual living in one of these 36,000 dwellings is earning, where he or she is working and what he or she earned last year by way of wages, and overtime, and so on.

I do not think that is as it should be. This is an invasion of privacy which is unwarranted, but it is there. The result has been that the rents chargeable at Ballymun, for instance, for flats erected by the Building Agency have been extremely high. These high rents charged to corporation tenants must inevitably result in adding to the impulse for a demand for increased wages which, in turn, due to the utter inadequacy of our prices machinery here, has an effect on prices resulting in increases, and also resulting in an inflationary and damaging national situation developing.

Rents are very important. So important are they that we have seen across the water that before the Greater London County Council are permitted to increase rents on their dwellings, they must go to the prices commission they have there and justify that increase. They must argue their case and it can be replied to. That does not apply here. Here it is simply a matter of arrangement between the corporation, the local authority, the manager and the Minister. That is unsatisfactory, and the result is that the rents charged for those houses are too high.

There is another aspect of this matter which is of very great importance, and which will become of even more importance in the near future. It is proposed to offer for sale on certain terms to the tenants of corporation houses in Dublin the houses in which they have been living. Houses in different areas and in different positions in different areas will be assessed by the city valuer and offered for sale to the people living in them. In many cases those houses were built 20 years ago at prices which would be nothing like present day prices for building houses. As a result of the operation of one schedule of the last Housing Act, the Minister for Local Government and the Dublin city manager have so arranged matters that any person in a corporation estate, as it is called, in any one of these 36,000 houses, who wants to purchase his or her house will be able to do so on the basis of its present market value, regardless of how that relates to the cost of building that house.

To my mind, that is a manifest injustice. There should be some arrangement to make allowance for each year of tenancy in the matter of price. This is simply off-setting the amount of rent paid over the period. It would seem that it is necessary to have some kind of legislative enactment before this unsatisfactory condition which is placed in front of the tenants concerned can be removed. However, I want to put the Minister on notice that I am now at this moment beginning what may well amount to a continuous discussion in this Dáil, unless he acts independently to ensure that the tenants concerned will not be asked to pay an artificial market value price for those houses. The market value of a house, as I understand it, is the price such a house would command if put up for public auction.

Can anyone say there is any justice in the price such a house would secure at public auction? This is determined by the house famine that exists at present. There is a near approach to black market conditions in housing. The price of a house is inflated beyond all reason and it can safely be assumed that if a corporation house in Ballyfermot, for example, were put on the market, an inflated offer would be made for it. Is that just or right? Is it right or just that this should be done to a person who lived in that house for 20, 15 or ten years, as the case may be? I contend that it is most unjust. It is simply another device to screw the maximum amount of money out of these people. I hope the Minister will cop himself on before it is too late. Whether he does or not, the Labour Party will fight the issues every inch of the way because it is not good enough.

The Minister for Finance has had a heavy load to carry over the past couple of weeks. One is impressed by his efficiency and ability. I want to refer to a matter which indirectly comes within his province but which is more directly within the province of the Office of Public Works. I refer to the Dáil Restaurant. It may seem inappropriate for discussion on the Taoiseach's Estimate but if the Chair would permit me for just a moment to outline what I have in mind, he will, I hope, see the relevance of it. There is a Committee composed of Members of this House styled the Restaurant Committee. I hope I will be allowed to say what I have to say without the intervention of our staff. What I am going to talk about, if given permission, is the Restaurant Committee. This committee has taken upon itself to say who is going to be let into the Restaurant and who will be barred from the Restaurant. I want to say that there is a personal spleen involved in this which I am not going to stand for.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I must draw the Deputy's attention to the fact that control of the Restaurant is a matter for the Restaurant Committee and the matter would have to be raised there or perhaps at the Committee of Procedure and Privileges and is not a matter for the Taoiseach.

Mr. Clinton

It is a good try.

Mr. S. Dunne

Before I could get the words out of my mouth—not the Chair—some of my friends were into action right away. I wonder could I hear exactly where and when can I raise this important matter of the exclusion of the political correspondents from the Restaurant at times when it is open, apparently, to anybody who ever handed out a leaflet outside a school for the Fianna Fáil Party, or the other Parties, if it comes to that.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

As the Chair understands, the issue of the Restaurant can be raised at the Restaurant Committee or perhaps at the Committee of Procedure and Privileges. It has nothing to do with the Taoiseach or his Estimate.

Mr. S. Dunne

I always understood that the Taoiseach's Estimate afforded us an opportunity of discussing practically anything we wanted to discuss in relation to Government administration. The Restaurant Committee is made up of Deputies, the majority of whom are members of the Fianna Fáil Party. I hope to get an opportunity of raising this matter again. I do not want to strain the rules of order, out of respect to you, but I do think it is a scandalous bloody thing and there is a personal spleen involved that should not be permitted. We should not permit this House to be made use of by any individual to pursue his petty likes or dislikes. Time, of course, will settle it, as time will do some weeding out of the membership of the House if some of the plans which we are told are in store for us are put into operation.

I do not know if the Taoiseach made reference in his introductory statement to Dr. Whitaker's almanack, the Programme for Economic Expansion. I suppose he did not. He probably drew a curtain over the Second Programme. It takes somebody with the verve and panache of the Minister for Finance to talk with any verisimilitude, as Deputy Dillon would say, on the subject of the Second Programme. Probably the Taoiseach did not feel that he could carry off any discussion of that disaster, the Second Programme. I remember a time when if one met a Fianna Fáil man in the corridors of Leinster House or down any street, instead of saying: "Good day," he would say: "Happy Second Programme to you." Now it is as if the Second Programme never happened. It is like a dirty word. The idea is: "Please do not mention that. Do not embarrass us. Keep it in the background." Yet, the Second Programme was supposed to solve all our problems. Many times I have expressed in this House my view of these moryah programmes. They were no more than confidence tricks, the whole lot of them, an expression of wishful thinking as to what things would be like in the sweet bye-and-bye. Things went wrong. Now we are talking about toying with a Third Programme.

I have referred to the feeling people have about what has gone on in connection with the independent line we were supposed to be pursuing in regard to entry into Europe. God help us. I do not want to go over it again.

I cannot leave the Estimate without some inquiry as to the health and happiness of that Irish Houdini, that great escapologist, now you see him, now you don't, Deputy Aiken. Where is he and how is he? What more appropriate Member of the House could I address that question to than the present occupant of the Taoiseach's seat, who is his colleague, not to mention his protegé? Where is he and how is he? There was some suggestion that he might be found in South East Africa settling some tribal business there. It was reported that he was to be in discussions with the Japanese Foreign Minister who rejoices in a very euphonious name. We would like to know about him though and so would the Irish people. He has made the best case that could be made for the abolition of the Department of External Affairs because, as far as we can see, he has not been in this House now for a long long time.

What has to be done over there at UNO that requires his continuous and relentless vigilance and constant presence? Is it that U Thant cannot get along without him? It certainly puzzles us. Is it his anxiety to be numbered amongst the candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize, as was suggested here on one occasion? Whatever it is, it is a mystery. He is certainly a mystery man, a mystery man of international affairs. I remember coming back at half-five one morning from Strasbourg. I had had the distinction of being a delegate to the Council of Europe. It was a cold, sharp winter morning, inclined to turn towards rain. Strasbourg airfield is very small. I thought I was the only one there, but there were two planes on the tarmac. I was getting abroad one with that honourable and highly civilised gentleman, Sir Alec Douglas Home, when I thought I observed in the half light of the early dawn a fugitive figure making his way up the steps of the other plane. I said to myself: "Surely not!" He had not been around Strasbourg. "Is he arriving or is he going? What is afoot?" I was not made any the wiser because the plane roared away into the sunrise, no doubt bringing good tidings of great joy to people in some other part of the world. Anywhere but here!

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy did not tell us who was on this plane? Who was the fugitive figure?

Mr. S. Dunne

I do not suppose I have to draw pictures for the Dáil to show what he looked like.

Mr. Dillon

We have forgotten what he looks like because we have not seen him for so long, God bless the decent man.

Mr. S. Dunne

I noticed the Minister for Labour here today. He is a kind of mini-Aiken in appearance. The Minister for External Affairs is really very remiss. We know he did give great service to the country. He was one of the patriots when patriotism was a dangerous thing. I think of the old man who said: "Remember the patriots? They paid themselves well." We know all about that and we do not take it from him, but he should come home now and again and tell us what he is at and what he is up to. He should not spend all his time away. It must be bad for him. We would not like to see him suffer. I believe it gets very cold over there at this time of the year.

There is one other matter I want to mention and then I shall not impose on the patience of the Chair any longer for this year. The matter is the announcement by CIE of an increase in fares in Dublin. There is a curious relationship between certain rural parts and Dublin city, a kind of lovehate business. People in certain parts of the country profess to condemn those who live in the city. Yet, it is the workers of this city who carry CIE and the increase in fares is to enable CIE apparently to meet the very high level of expenditure on public transport and to maintain the skeleton railway service that is left. Many years ago we contended that the maintenance of a rail service and of a public transport service must never be examined from the point of view of its profitability in the ordinary business sense of the word. There was such a great element of social need in a transport service that we argued it must be regarded primarily as a social service, It is only latterly, after fighting a bitter rearguard action, that the Department of Transport and Power has come to accept this idea, an idea long ago accepted in most other countries. It has been found elsewhere that the idea of making a transport system produce a profit is such a conundrum that any such system must be maintained not as a business proposition but as a social necessity, and it must be paid for in some other way.

We, in the Labour Party, have absolutely no objection to that. But I, as a representative of Dublin county, with all its diverse groups of population, the majority of whom use CIE transport, believe it is most unfair that these workers should be squeezed in order to balance the books of CIE and provide a transport system for the whole country. I do not say the profit made on the Dublin buses pays for everything, but it goes a good part of the way. Recently the general manager of CIE, in an interview on television, said that the Dublin bus service showed a profit. Now it will show a bigger profit because fares are going up. They are going up on the most helpless section of the community, the working people who have to travel from the suburbs to the centre of the city and out again to other suburbs to reach their places of employment. Transport costs for these people can vary from 18/- to 25/- a week, a very effective wage reduction.

I want to protest against this. I want to protest against the whole idea of using the population of Dublin as an inexhaustible source from which to find all the answers to the financial problems of CIE. The people cannot afford this increase. Along with these increased fares, they have to meet the increased rents to which I referred earlier. All these are aids in the impulse towards inflation. Even the economists, concerned with much loftier things as a general rule, have been forced to take note of the effect of these increases on these sections of our community. I know that the Minister for Transport and Power, whom we were glad to see made chairman of some committee or other in Paris this week, will disclaim responsibility, as he disclaims responsibility for practically every single step taken by his Department. I have before characterised him in Baldwin's famous phrase when he described the newspapers as exercising power without responsibility, which has been the prerogative of the harlot through the ages. If you put a question to the Department of Transport and Power, you are told that the Minister has no responsibility. I have a reasonably large file from the Office of the Ceann Comhairle setting out occasions upon which this reply was given to me. It is pointless to talk to the present incumbent of the Department of Transport and Power. The only hope we have is that the time is not too far distant when he will be told to take it easy, to make way for somebody else, that he has been working too hard in the wrong direction and dragging the country with him in the wrong direction, and that in the interest of his own welfare, he should give it up. If I am hurting the feelings of Deputy Corry in saying this, I am sorry, but it has to be said.

Mr. Dowling

I will be reasonably brief compared with some of the speakers we have heard this morning. The Taoiseach has inspired confidence throughout the country. In the past 12 months, he has four in a row to his credit which is a remarkable achievement. This shows that the devices used by the different political Parties and by other organisations outside these Parties to spread false information and false propaganda have not been accepted by the people. The people have shown that they will no longer accept the promises of people who fail to implement their promises.

The result of that was shown in the by-elections in Cork and West Limerick when no longer were any new policies produced or promises made. This was a remarkable feature of these two by-elections and it shows that at last Fine Gael are meeting the situation in a realistic way, that they realise that they can no longer fool the people with new policies and new promises. And the same may be said of the Labour Party. This country has a responsible and intelligent public opinion. The people know the policies that were produced and the promises that were not kept. They know that the Taoiseach has fulfilled the pronouncements made by him and they remember that other people did not fulfil their promises.

Deputy Corish is reported as saying that the younger Deputies were disappointed with the progress made by the Taoiseach. Certainly the younger Deputies of the Labour Party, the only one for which Deputy Corish can speak, are disappointed. They are disappointed because of the progress made in social welfare over the past 12 months. They are disappointed because of free post-primary education, because of free travel for the aged, because of free electricity for the aged, because of the protection for the workers that has been given in the Redundancy Payment Act. It is no wonder that the young Deputies of the Labour Party are disappointed at the manner in which the Taoiseach handled the situation and the affairs of State.

This is only the start and it is a respectable start for the first year in office. There is much more on the way. Our policy is the development of the social services, the protection of the workers and the building of houses. All these matters have been and are receiving attention. One matter mentioned by Deputy Dunne and other speakers on which I find myself in some agreement with them is the question of land purchase. I do not decry every builder for buying land for the building of houses but I do believe that when the land speculator, as distinct from the house speculator, moves in, the Government should act to ensure that an agricultural value is put upon the land and to see that if the local authority wish to acquire it for house building, they should be in a position to do so.

Various members of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties have mentioned the question of housing in Dublin. One would think that there was no problem when they were in power and that the problem was the result of incompetence on the part of Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Dillon

1,500 houses, and no people to go into them.

Mr. Dowling

Deputy Dillon has repeated on numerous occasions that we had plenty of houses.

Mr. Dillon

I am only saying what Deputy Seán Lemass said.

Mr. Dowling

This is what Deputy Dillon said, that we had plenty of houses.

Mr. Dillon

I am saying that Deputy Lemass as Minister for Industry and Commerce, said there were 1,500 houses in Dublin city with no tenants to go into them.

Mr. Dowling

Repeated statements have been made by Fine Gael and Labour that an abundance of houses was available when they were in office. One would think that there was no waiting list and that all a person had to do was to go along and pick up a key and that a home would be available to go into. We know their record when they were in power and what the position was when they left. I am going to start from scratch to show the situation that was developing in Dublin and which brought about the crisis, the situation as it was when these people ran away from their responsibilities. I should like to quote what Deputy Larkin said at column 2060, volume 160, of the Dáil Debates when speaking on a motion on the financing of housing.

I do not think there is anything to be pleased about when an essential building programme is being held up. People living in clearance areas, families suffering from TB and families living in overcrowded conditions will have to wait for this essential building programme.

That is what Deputy Larkin said, that people with TB living in overcrowded conditions and in slum clearance areas would have to wait because of the hold-up in the building situation. This clearly indicates the type of lie that has been bandied around the country year after year since they deserted office in 1956. The actual fact is that when they were leaving office, people with TB were still waiting for homes. That situation has gone past. Deputy Larkin goes on to give us a clearer picture of the type of situation that existed in 1956.

Mr. Clinton

Why does the Deputy not read out what his Party said in the First and Second Programmes?

Mr. Dowling

At column 2053 of the same volume, Deputy Larkin said:

Our officials also submitted an estimate showing in what way the Corporation should confine itself to a total expenditure of £4 million next year. The first step required the cutting out of the new contract for the Finglas area. That has been approved by the Minister, but now we will have to tell the contractor: "Sorry, we cannot continue with this contact now." That involved a reduction of £61,000 in the estimate. The next item in reference to the direct housing scheme for the Finglas area. That scheme was not to be proceeded with either. It was also suggested that there should be a gradual diminution in employment on direct housing schemes and a gradual laying-off of the workers concerned.

That is the sorry picture at that stage when those people were in power and getting ready to run away from office. I can understand why. It is far from the picture which is painted here today and which has been painted here on other occasions, that there were plenty of houses when they were in office. At least we have one truthful source here which gives us the picture. I hope that Deputy Dillon and members of the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party will not again utter the untruths so often uttered here and elsewhere but that they will tell the people the truth, that they could not house people with TB, people living in overcrowded conditions, or in slum clearance areas, and that there was serious overcrowding at that period.

Now we have clarified the situation as it was when they were getting ready to depart, when they were fixing up the books, covering up their tracks, in order to ensure that the public would not be aware of the situation until the election was over. I am quite sure this book was not out in time for many people to read. We had, therefore, in this House at the time, references to the termination of building development, the laying-off of workers and the bringing of the house building programme to a standstill. I do not know whether I should quote Deputy Larkin further or whether I should allow Deputy Dillon and members of the Fine Gael Party to look at volume 160 themselves. Certainly to me and to many people in my age group it makes very good reading. It shows the type of individuals who had control of the country and that the unfortunate people who were depending on the inter-Party Government were betrayed, that the Government were unable to implement their promises and sent the people packing. This has been indicated here by no less a person than Deputy Larkin.

In 1957, when the new Government took over, it was necessary that essential preliminary work on housing should be done. It has been agreed that it takes approximately three years to put into operation any kind of development work that will lay foundations for an essential housing programme of any magnitude. This work was done in the following three years. At that stage the Minister for Local Government felt that the corporation were not proceeding at the pace the Government felt was necessary in order to clear up the mess made by the inter-Party Government. He decided, in order to stimulate the building programme, that the Ballymun scheme would be initiated, a scheme by which 3,000 dwellings would be produced. This scheme, which has been decried by members of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties, as has the entire building programme, is well under way. I should like to quote now from the housing report of Dublin Corporation to indicate the true position at present and the future position.

At September 30th last there were under construction 2,906 dwellings. Tenders had been approved for 180 purchase type houses for the Coolock/ Kilmore section; for 146 purchase type houses at the Coolock/Kilmore section and for 60 flats at George's Place. Tenders submitted to the Department of Local Government at the same date were for the erection of 54 purchase type houses at Coolock/Kilmore, 16 houses at St. Columbanus Road and 32 flats at Powerscourt. Tenders received and under examination were for the erection of 18 purchase type houses at Ballygall Road and tenders have been invited for the erection of 168 flats at Charlemont Street. This is far from the picture painted by members of the Fine Gael and Labour Party Front Benches in the last day or so. Here we have a programme for a variety of accommodation and a policy whereby members of the working classes are in a position to obtain from the local authority houses on a purchase basis.

Not alone in relation to the new housing developments at Kilmore and Milltown and other schemes at present under consideration, we also have the tenant purchase scheme which was placed before the corporation and has now been circulated to tenants in Dublin city. Today we heard a member of the Labour Party indicating that they are going to fight this scheme. I think they have fought this scheme for a considerable period in order to deprive the tenants of the corporation of an opportunity to own their own homes.

Debate adjourned.